Yesterday morning I went cycling in High Park to try and condition myself for the Bike for Brain Health ride that I have coming up. The Park is such an incredible amenity and I love being so close to it. Of course, before I set out, I turned on my Apple Watch and Garmin computer so that I could track it all in Strava. This has become such a big part of cycling (and working out in general). We're all data obsessed. Everyone wants to track their route, their speed, their heart rate, and whatever else.
The result is that Strava collects mountains of data about the way people actively move about in cities — data on everything from cycling to backcountry skiing. Some of this aggregated/anonymized data is available to the public via their global heatmap, but much more of it is available to urban planners and active transportation groups around the world. In fact, this is part of what Strava does: they help city builders. Here are some urban case studies spanning Rio de Janeiro to Park City.
Looking at central Toronto, our heatmap looks like this:
What is immediately noticeable is that cyclists will go where they feel safe. And that generally means streets with dedicated bike lanes. Looking at the above map, you can see that some of the most popular north-south routes are Shaw Street, Beverley Street/St. George Street, and Sherbourne Street. All of these streets have dedicated bike lanes. In the east-west direction, it's also clear that Bloor Street and Danforth Avenue form a hugely important crosstown artery. It is widely used from Etobicoke all the way to Scarborough.
At the same time, these maps start to show where there are broken links in the network. Annette Street and a portion of Dupont Street are, for example, widely used until you get east of the Junction Triangle. Then it falls off. This is unsurprising because it's a stretch of Dupont that isn't very friendly to cyclists. I know I certainly try and avoid it. Instead, we see that cyclists seem to be shifting northward to Davenport, which has a nice bike lane.
This is just one example, and I'm sure there's a lot of other takeaways that can be gleaned from Strava's data. So if you're a city builder and you aren't already leveraging this dataset, you may want to consider applying for a Metro Partnership. I'll be sure to continue doing my part and feeding it data about my laps in High Park and my stops for burgers and croissant sandwiches.
The City of London, also known as the "Square Mile," is the financial district of London. Some 678,000 people work in the area, nearly 9,000 people live in it, and millions visit it each year. So it's an intensely used square mile (~1.12 square miles or ~2.9 square kilometers). Given this intensity, do you think that it would be reasonable, or even possible, for all 678,000 people to drive their own car to work and not experience crippling traffic congestion?
Obviously not, and the data reflects that:
Motor vehicle usage within the City of London is nearly a third of what it was in 1999. This is a result of moves like the city's Congestion Charge (introduced in 2003) and new Cycling Superhighways (introduced between 2015-16).
Cycling increased 57% from 2022 to 2024. Personal bike usage increased 36%. Shared dockless bike usage increased 4x and now makes up 17% of all people cycling. During daytime hours (7am to 7pm) cycling represents about 39% of all on-street traffic, which is nearly 2x the amount of cars and private hires. And based on current trends, cycling is forecasted to become the dominant all-around mode of transport within as soon as two years.
People walking, wheeling, and cycling now make up three quarters of all travel, up from two-thirds in 2022. This is a huge percentage.
We talk a lot about mobility and traffic congestion on this blog — particularly in the context of Toronto — and that's because it remains a problem and we continue to avoid any sort of big and meaningful moves. Instead, we like to
Yesterday morning I went cycling in High Park to try and condition myself for the Bike for Brain Health ride that I have coming up. The Park is such an incredible amenity and I love being so close to it. Of course, before I set out, I turned on my Apple Watch and Garmin computer so that I could track it all in Strava. This has become such a big part of cycling (and working out in general). We're all data obsessed. Everyone wants to track their route, their speed, their heart rate, and whatever else.
The result is that Strava collects mountains of data about the way people actively move about in cities — data on everything from cycling to backcountry skiing. Some of this aggregated/anonymized data is available to the public via their global heatmap, but much more of it is available to urban planners and active transportation groups around the world. In fact, this is part of what Strava does: they help city builders. Here are some urban case studies spanning Rio de Janeiro to Park City.
Looking at central Toronto, our heatmap looks like this:
What is immediately noticeable is that cyclists will go where they feel safe. And that generally means streets with dedicated bike lanes. Looking at the above map, you can see that some of the most popular north-south routes are Shaw Street, Beverley Street/St. George Street, and Sherbourne Street. All of these streets have dedicated bike lanes. In the east-west direction, it's also clear that Bloor Street and Danforth Avenue form a hugely important crosstown artery. It is widely used from Etobicoke all the way to Scarborough.
At the same time, these maps start to show where there are broken links in the network. Annette Street and a portion of Dupont Street are, for example, widely used until you get east of the Junction Triangle. Then it falls off. This is unsurprising because it's a stretch of Dupont that isn't very friendly to cyclists. I know I certainly try and avoid it. Instead, we see that cyclists seem to be shifting northward to Davenport, which has a nice bike lane.
This is just one example, and I'm sure there's a lot of other takeaways that can be gleaned from Strava's data. So if you're a city builder and you aren't already leveraging this dataset, you may want to consider applying for a Metro Partnership. I'll be sure to continue doing my part and feeding it data about my laps in High Park and my stops for burgers and croissant sandwiches.
The City of London, also known as the "Square Mile," is the financial district of London. Some 678,000 people work in the area, nearly 9,000 people live in it, and millions visit it each year. So it's an intensely used square mile (~1.12 square miles or ~2.9 square kilometers). Given this intensity, do you think that it would be reasonable, or even possible, for all 678,000 people to drive their own car to work and not experience crippling traffic congestion?
Obviously not, and the data reflects that:
Motor vehicle usage within the City of London is nearly a third of what it was in 1999. This is a result of moves like the city's Congestion Charge (introduced in 2003) and new Cycling Superhighways (introduced between 2015-16).
Cycling increased 57% from 2022 to 2024. Personal bike usage increased 36%. Shared dockless bike usage increased 4x and now makes up 17% of all people cycling. During daytime hours (7am to 7pm) cycling represents about 39% of all on-street traffic, which is nearly 2x the amount of cars and private hires. And based on current trends, cycling is forecasted to become the dominant all-around mode of transport within as soon as two years.
People walking, wheeling, and cycling now make up three quarters of all travel, up from two-thirds in 2022. This is a huge percentage.
We talk a lot about mobility and traffic congestion on this blog — particularly in the context of Toronto — and that's because it remains a problem and we continue to avoid any sort of big and meaningful moves. Instead, we like to
For more data, check out the City of London's City Streets 2025 Summary Report.
Cover photo by Frans Ruiter on Unsplash
Here are three examples and possible solutions:
Copenhagen: Over 60% of residents use a bicycle to commute to work or school. It is one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world. You've probably heard this before and are prepared to say, "yeah, well, we're not Copenhagen." But it's important to point out that neither was Copenhagen. In the early-to-mid 70s, the modal split for bikes was somewhere between ~10-15%.
Singapore: This is one of my favorite examples. Singapore is home to the world's first congestion charge zone (1975). And it operates on a dynamic pricing model, meaning that traffic congestion is continually monitored and road prices are adjusted to ensure that traffic always flows at certain minimum speed. It's a highly effective tool and there's no shortage of global case studies. Here's Miami.
Zurich: Despite being one of the wealthiest cities in Europe, car ownership is relatively low (~40-45% of the population, compared to ~60-65% in Toronto). This is due to a great public transit system (Swiss trains and stuff) and because of strict parking policies, among other things.
Zurich has a hard cap on the number of parking spaces in the central part of the city. It is set at 1990 levels, which works out to about 7,600 total parking spaces. What this means is that if somebody, like a big bad developer, wants to build off-street parking, they need to simultaneously reduce the parking supply somewhere else. You can't exceed the cap.
This obviously discourages car usage and moderates the demand for city streets, but it also serves as a clever way to slowly replace on-street parking with better uses, such as an enhanced public realm. This policy has been in place since 1989 and it has had a dramatic effect on car usage. Between 2000 and 2021, the share of car trips in the city decreased from 40% to 29%.
I know that many of you will scoff at these solutions and think "yeah, there's no way." But this is how you make traffic better. You reduce demand and use our finite amount of road capacity more efficiently. So we can either make bold moves or we can continue to complain about traffic.
Cover photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
For more data, check out the City of London's City Streets 2025 Summary Report.
Cover photo by Frans Ruiter on Unsplash
Here are three examples and possible solutions:
Copenhagen: Over 60% of residents use a bicycle to commute to work or school. It is one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world. You've probably heard this before and are prepared to say, "yeah, well, we're not Copenhagen." But it's important to point out that neither was Copenhagen. In the early-to-mid 70s, the modal split for bikes was somewhere between ~10-15%.
Singapore: This is one of my favorite examples. Singapore is home to the world's first congestion charge zone (1975). And it operates on a dynamic pricing model, meaning that traffic congestion is continually monitored and road prices are adjusted to ensure that traffic always flows at certain minimum speed. It's a highly effective tool and there's no shortage of global case studies. Here's Miami.
Zurich: Despite being one of the wealthiest cities in Europe, car ownership is relatively low (~40-45% of the population, compared to ~60-65% in Toronto). This is due to a great public transit system (Swiss trains and stuff) and because of strict parking policies, among other things.
Zurich has a hard cap on the number of parking spaces in the central part of the city. It is set at 1990 levels, which works out to about 7,600 total parking spaces. What this means is that if somebody, like a big bad developer, wants to build off-street parking, they need to simultaneously reduce the parking supply somewhere else. You can't exceed the cap.
This obviously discourages car usage and moderates the demand for city streets, but it also serves as a clever way to slowly replace on-street parking with better uses, such as an enhanced public realm. This policy has been in place since 1989 and it has had a dramatic effect on car usage. Between 2000 and 2021, the share of car trips in the city decreased from 40% to 29%.
I know that many of you will scoff at these solutions and think "yeah, there's no way." But this is how you make traffic better. You reduce demand and use our finite amount of road capacity more efficiently. So we can either make bold moves or we can continue to complain about traffic.
Cover photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
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